Stanley Kubrick’s only horror film The Shining may famously have been disavowed by Stephen King for the liberties it took in adapting King’s bestselling 1977 novel, but those deviations are part of what makes the film so effective (leaving aside the shrill edge-of-madness performances, the exquisitely over-designed mise en scène, the unnervingly mobile camerawork, and…
Body horror and the beauty myth: six influences and intertexts for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance first published by BFI, 21 September 2024 Includes capsules of: The Fly (1958), Seconds, The Shining, Basket Case, Yoga Hakwon, Replace In Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024), fallen Tinseltown star Elisabeth Sprinkle (Demi Moore) agrees, at age 50, to undergo…
Six Home Releases from February 2024 first published by Little White Lies, 18 Feb 2024, as entry 185 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column Includes capsules of: Marmalade, Slotherhouse, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Yakuza Wolf 1, Paths of Glory, Psycho IV Marmalade (2024) Recently arrested for armed robbery, long-haired, doe-eyed Baron (Joe Keery) tells his lifestory to cellmate Otis (Aldis…
10 Sci-Fi Adaptations first published by BFI, 14 October 2021, to coincide with the release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Includes capsules of: Frankenstein, Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Horror Express, Starship Troopers, War of the Worlds, A Scanner Darkly, 1, The Congress, Aniara With its immense world building, vast ensemble of characters, and complicated…
Doctor Sleep first published by Little White Lies Let’s call it the battle of the SKs. In 1977, Stephen King publishes his best-selling novel The Shining, translating into the allegorical language of horror fiction the toll that his own alcoholism was taking on his professional and domestic lives. in 1980, Stanley Kubrick turns that novel…